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Warhammer Online
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (officially abbreviated as WAR) was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting. It was developed by Mythic Entertainment and was simultaneously released in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on September 18, 2008. The game revolved around the continual worldwide conflict that the Warhammer Fantasy setting is known for, and the game is geared toward ongoing, constant war laced with dark humour. A spin-off, Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes, was a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game. It entered open beta on April 10, 2012 but was shut down before it left the beta on March 29, 2013. On September 18, 2013, it was announced by Mythic that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning would shut down on December 18, 2013, due to the license agreement with Games Workshop coming to an end. The shutdown took place as planned. Overview Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning featured Mythic's Realm versus Realm (RvR) combat system, originally developed in Dark Age of Camelot. This took place within three different racial pairings: Dwarfs vs. Greenskins, The Empire vs. Chaos, and High Elves vs. Dark Elves. Although there were only two races per pairing, players could travel to either of the other two pairings to help fight with their friends and allies. There were four types of RvR combat: Skirmishes (random world encounters), Battlefields (objective-driven battles in RvR-specific areas), Scenarios (instanced, point-based battles against the opposing faction), and Campaigns (invading enemy lands and capital cities). In RvR players fight other players and, to a lesser extent, non-player characters. Each activity generated Victory Points (VP) which measured a realm's progress in capturing a zone. When one realm reached a designated amount of Victory Points in a particular zone, that zone fell under their control and the war pushed deeper into enemy territory. This back and forth struggle for zone control continued until one side held two racial pairings, and the attacking side may sack, loot, and pillage the enemy's capital city. The capture of a capital city was the objective of the campaign. Once a capital city was taken, the attackers were given a period time to loot the city. When this period expired, the defeated players received increasing support from NPC guards until they were able to force the attackers out of their city and close the gates. At this point the campaign then begun anew, restarting the cycle. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was a Realm versus Realm (RvR) game with two factions: Order and Destruction. Each faction contained three separate armies, each of which was further broken down into four career choices. Each of the careers (classes) in Warhammer Online conform to an archetype role. For example, the Warrior Priest is an archetypal support or healer career, though he also has many melee DPS elements. In this way, the careers are given variety and avoid being simple reiterations of common archetypes. The initial character creation process allows players to select the race, career, and basic look of their character, including facial features and accessories. In addition to the original name that the player chooses for their character at creation, the player has the option to add a surname to their character for a small fee at rank 20. Dye is available at NPC vendors for recoloring armor and accessories. Players are able to decorate themselves with trophies, such as the heads of fallen enemies, which are equipped and displayed at various points on the character model. Mythic offered four different server types at launch: Core, Open RvR, Role-Play, and Open RvR/RP. On Core servers, enemy factions can only attack each other if both players are flagged for RvR. Players are automatically flagged for RvR upon entering RvR-specific areas or enemy PvE areas, and can choose to turn their flag on at any time. Open RvR servers are flagged for RvR at all times, with few exceptions. Role-Play servers have the same rules as the Core servers, and players are encouraged to role-play their characters. Finally, Open RvR/RP servers follow the same rules as the Open RvR servers, and players are encouraged to role-play their characters. Cut Content Warhammer online was plagued with problems from the start, such as Bugs and class and faction imbalances. One of the most glaring problems was the large amount of content that was cut out before the game was released. At first each race had a capital city that was fully functioning, For example Karaz-a-Karak for the Dwarfs and Karak Eight Peaks for the Greenskins, yet all of the cities were cut down to just the Empire city of Altdorf for the Order faction and the Chaos City of The Inevitable City for the Disorder faction and while players and fans were told that the other cities would eventually be put into the game as fully functioning cities in a future patch, they never were. Another example of cut content were certain classes, such as the Hammerer for the Dwarfs, Blackguard for the Dark Elves, Choppa for the Greenskins, and the Knight of the Blazing Sun for the Empire, and while most of these classes were later added into the game in a patch the Dwarf class of Hammerer was not. Warhammer online revolved around a parallel universe to the main timeline of Warhammer Fantasy, in this parallel timeline the forces of Disorder, namely Chaos, Dark Elves, and the Greenskins have teamed up to destroy the forces of Order who are the Dwarfs, The Empire, and the High Elves, once and for all. So the forces of Order in the face of utter annihilation decided to band together to fight the hordes of Disorder, despite their distrust of each other. Each race within each faction largely faced off against its age-old Nemesis despite being united to a point within their factions. The Dwarfs fought a desperate battle against the Greenskins for control of the Worlds Edge Mountains, while The Empire was under siege by the dreaded forces of Chaos to decide the fate of Man, And the High elves fought for control of their island continent of Ulthuan against their twisted kin, The Dark Elves. Truly this was the Age of Reckoning. Category:Warhammer Online Category:Videogames